


Eggo, The Magically Multiplying Cat

by Inkblood13



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, and also likes cats, el is innocent, max decides she has to protecc, steves a mom like usual, takes place before season 3 happens during the very beginning of summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-28 18:33:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20068639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkblood13/pseuds/Inkblood13
Summary: El finds a stray cat and brings it into her house just in time for it to give birth to four tiny kittens. She calls Max for help, knowing she’s in way over her head, but they have to keep them all hidden from one very-allergic-to-cats Hopper. And maybe the girls’ friendship starts to grow, though it might end up being something more than friendship...





	1. Chapter 1

It was the middle of the day, and El was busy sitting on her couch doing nothing in particular. Hopper was working and her friends were all busy. Dustin was at summer camp, Will was with his brother, and Lucas was with Mike, who had been very distant towards El since she had broken up with him last week. 

Why had she done that again? Well, she liked Mike. She liked hanging out with him and the others, and she liked talking to him and laughing at his jokes. But after a while she had realized that kissing him was not very fun at all. Mike wasn’t a very good kisser, or maybe she just didn’t like kissing. She wasn’t sure what the problem had been, because she didn’t have anything else to compare it to. 

But now she was lonely. And bored. When would Hopper be home? She got up from the couch and walked to the window. It was only noon, but maybe his job was so boring that he would decide to come home early? Even El knew that was wishful thinking. 

She peered out the window onto the small front porch. No one was there, no car was in the yard, not a soul besides herself was around. 

“MEOW”

El jumped, rattling the blinds as she bumped into them. The noise came again, from outside the window, and very loudly. 

El pressed her face to the glass, smushing her nose flat as she peered downwards, towards the sound. There was something there. 

It was small, and covered in hair, with two big orange eyes that stared up at her peeping form. The animal made that noise again, opening it's little mouth to cry out to her. 

El had no idea what kind of creature she was looking at, but her heart melted a little as she stared at it’s tiny pink nose. It blinked slowly, twitching it’s ears as it watched her. 

El made a quick decision and backed away from the window, heading to the door. She opened it slowly, so slowly, not wanting to scare the creature. She stepped out onto the porch and turned towards the animal, which jumped to it’s feet to stare at her apprehensively. 

She took a careful step closer to it, locking eye contact with the creature. “Come here creature,” she ordered softly. She was pretty sure the animal wouldn’t be able to understand what she was saying, but it was worth a try anyway. 

The animal, however, took a step back, making a different sound than before. This sound was more angry, like it was trying to warn her to stay away. 

But El didn’t want to stay away. The creature had so obviously been crying for help a minute ago, and it looked so... soft. El had the most intense urge to run her hand over it's arched back, to feel the black fluff that coated it’s body. 

El stopped moving as she realized what was wrong with the creature. It wasn’t mad- it was scared. El noticed how small the creature was, and how big she must look to it. 

But El had learned something with the squirrels she had come across in the woods- they love food. This animal was definitely not a squirrel, but maybe it liked food too. 

“Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back,” she told it, keeping her voice soft, before turning around and heading back into the house through the still-open front door. 

Once she was out of the creature’s sight, she moved faster, dashing to the kitchen. She threw the fridge and freezer doors open with her powers before she got to them, already scanning the contents for something she could give to the creature. 

An apple? No. It’s little mouth didn’t look like it could bite apples very well. Leftover chili? No. It might not like the spiciness. 

Her eyes moved up from the fridge to the freezer and she immediately saw the four yellow boxes stacked on top of each other, covered in tiny ice chips. Eggos. 

El decided that Eggos were good for the creature. El loved Eggos. They were soft enough for the animal to bite. Yes. She would feed the creature Eggos. 

She pulled out the box on top, that was already open from her breakfast, and grabbed a frozen waffle from inside. She stuck it in the toaster, which Hopper had spent twenty minutes one night teaching her how to use, and pushed the lever down so the waffles could cook. 

While she was waiting she dashed back to the window and saw the animal was still on the porch, apparently calm again. Satisfied, El went back to the kitchen and stared at the toaster impatiently until the Eggo finally popped up. 

She grabbed it out of the toaster with her bare hand, ready to run back out onto the porch. And... she immediately dropped it onto the counter- the waffle was still super hot. El grunted with irritation, and was about to just float it to the porch with her mind, but she thought better of it. She took a deep breath and realized she needed to force herself to slow down for a minute. El wasn’t sure how well the creature could bite and chew things, so she decided to start tearing the Eggo into small pieces with her mind, forming a haphazard pile of mini-Eggo bites. 

When she finished shredding the waffle into bite-sized chunks, she floated them all off the counter- there were definitely too many little pieces to carry with her hands- and walked to the door, Eggo bits beside her. She crept back outside and crouched down near the creature. Keeping her movements slow and deliberate, she placed a flying Eggo bite in front of it. 

The animal stared at her, and then at the floating waffles, and finally at the piece in front on it. It moved it’s head down to sniff it without taking it’s eyes off of El. It’s pink nose wiggled and twitched as it sniffed the waffle all over before it finally stuck an equally pink tongue out and licked it. It licked it two more times before finally picking it up in it’s mouth and eating it. 

It swallowed and looked back up at El, a look of interest flashing in it’s eyes. El grinned and landed another waffle in front of the creature. It ate that one more quickly, not taking the time to smell it before snatching it up in it’s mouth. 

El had an idea. She started setting the floating waffles down on the ground, spaced out in a line that gradually led through the front door and into the living room. After placing them all down, El stepped back and watched the creature follow the trail, scarfing down Eggos as it went.

The animal didn’t even notice as it waltzed through the door and into the house, still focused on the food. Now El wondered what she should do with it. Should she shut the door so it stayed inside? Or let it go back out? El decided she didn’t want the creature to run away- she liked it. But maybe trapping it wasn’t the best idea. 

She decided to leave the door open and see what the creature did. El watched as it swallowed the last Eggo bite and sat down on it’s hind legs, blinking at it’s surroundings for the first time. Apparently satisfied with what it saw, it stuck it’s pink tongue out and started licking itself all over. El hadn’t seen squirrels do that before. Maybe it’s fur tasted good? Was it eating itself? Should she stop it?

But before she could decide on what to do, it stopped licking it’s fur and stood. It walked up to El, tail stuck lazily in the air as it approached. The creature started rubbing it’s body against El’s legs, making a noise similar to the sound Hopper’s car made when he turned it on to leave in the mornings. 

This perplexed El even further, but she came to the conclusion that she had won the creature’s favor with waffles, so she relaxed. Deciding the animal had become friendly enough to touch, she gently bent down and stroked the animal’s fur with two fingers. It was so soft, El almost gasped out loud. 

The animal let out a soft “mew”, but not a sad one like when El had first seen it. It somehow managed to convey a completely different feeling with the exact same word- El almost wished she had that ability, she still struggled so often to form sentences that accurately described what she was trying to say. 

El sat down cross-legged on the floor and continued to pet the animal, slowly using her entire hand to stroke it’s soft back. After a minute of making the engine sound, it turned and climbed cautiously into El’s lap and laid down. El held her breath, grinning as she watched the animal get comfortable and close it’s eyes. 

She kept petting it, even though she was pretty sure the creature was asleep. Then she felt something strange- something in the creature’s stomach. 

Now that she looked at it, the animal’s stomach was much larger and rounder than she would expect, especially compared to the delicate features of the rest of it’s body. El bit her lip worriedly. Maybe she had given it too many Eggos?

El kept on thinking about what might be wrong with the animal as it slept in her lap. Maybe it was supposed to be that shape? Or maybe it had a parasite living inside it’s body? Or what if it was just fat?

A while later the animal woke up and stood. El was a little disappointed when the animal walked away from her lap, but she realized it couldn’t stay there forever. El struggled to understand the passage of time- it could have been minutes or hours that had passed and she honestly would not have been able to tell the difference. 

But she glanced outside the door, which was still open, and saw that the sky had become blanketed in dark gray clouds, and the air was filled with the feeling of something about to happen. 

El quickly realized that the something was rain, and she stood up to close the door. She didn’t want the inside of the house to get wet, and she didn’t want the animal outside during a downpour either- especially if it was sick. Hopper had told her that going out in the cold rain without proper clothes would make you catch a cold, and she didn’t want that to happen to the animal. What if no one had ever told it that it could get sick?

After closing the door, El went to find the animal, and discovered it sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor. It could still be tired. El decided to make a bed for it, so it could sleep better. 

She opened her closet door and rustled around inside until she found an old shoebox. It was pretty big, because it had had Hopper’s tall boots inside it. She set it on the floor and pulled the pillowcases off of the two pillows in her bed. She arranged them inside the box to make it cushiony and warm, so the animal would like it. 

Then she set it down next to the animal and watched as it sniffed the box in front of it. It stood up and sniffed the pillowcases in the bottom for a minute, deciding whether or not it was a good smell. El stood perfectly still as the animal stepped inside. 

Then, for the first time she saw that the animal had sharp claws on it’s feet. It stuck them out and padded around the cushions, ruffling them up before laying down. El glared in annoyance- she had spent a good two minutes making sure the cushion was perfectly flat and even. 

But the animal quickly made it up to her by curling up inside and closing it’s eyes, making the engine-sound again. It enjoyed the result of El’s efforts after all. Pleased with herself, El turned her bedroom light off and went back to the living room so it could sleep in peace. 

She glanced out the window where she had first noticed the creature and saw that it had already started to rain. It was sprinkling now, but she knew that it would start pouring any minute. That’s how rain worked- slow and cautious at first, warning everyone to go inside before it began to pummel the earth with cold drops of wetness. 

She moved away from the window and sat down on the couch, grabbing the remote. She turned on the tv, but kept the volume low so it wouldn’t disturb the animal in the other room.

•••

A couple hours later the rain had finally slowed down a little, so El decided to check on the animal and see if it had woken up from it’s nap yet. She turned off the tv and got up from the couch, stretching her arms up in the air to loosen her limbs as she yawned. She could almost take a nap herself right now. 

She shrugged the sleepiness from her body and walked to her bedroom, slowly opening the door and flicking the light switch on with her mind before going inside. El looked to the middle of the room and saw the animal staring up at her with those big, round eyes. And it had four more, even tinier bodies curled up around it.


	2. Chapter 2

El bit her tongue to keep from crying out and scaring the creature. No, the creatures. Because there were more of them now, all curled up in the shoebox she had made for it. 

She crept closer to the box and bent down to see the animals. Babies. They must be babies. But... how? El knew there were a lot of things about the world that she still didn’t understand, but she was beyond mystified at how she could bring a single sweet animal into the house so it wouldn’t get caught in the rain, and check back on it to find it had multiplied in the hour or two that she had left it alone. 

El took a closer look at the babies. One was black, like the mother, one was completely white, one was grey with a stretch of white reaching from it’s chest to the underside of it’s belly, and the last one was white with big black spots all over it. They were pretty cute. 

The grey one wiggled a bit, snuggling closer to it’s mother’s side, and El noticed something worrying- it’s eyes remained closed, even though it was awake. At first she had thought their eyes were closed because they were all sleeping, but then she saw them move a little bit and it dawned on her that they just couldn’t open their eyes. Something must be wrong with them. They wouldn’t be able to do much without being able to see, but El wasn’t sure what she could do to help. 

The babies were so tiny, El felt that if she touched them they would break. She needed someone who knew more about these animals to help her. But Hopper still wouldn’t be home for hours. She could try calling her friends on the walkie-talkies and see if anyone answered. 

She scrambled to her feet and quickly found the walkie-talkie. She turned it on, like Mike had showed her, and spoke into it. “Guys? Are you there?” she asked frantically. “Over,” she added, remembering Dustin’s insistence to say that word when they were done talking. 

No one answered. She tried again. “Hello? I need help. Over.”

She waited another minute, and finally the speaker crackled to life. “Eleven? What’s wrong?” It was Max. 

El shifted uncomfortably, even though Max couldn’t see her. She felt bad for how cold she had been to the other girl, especially now that she knew Mike wasn’t anything worth getting all jealous over. But Max was the only one reaching out, so she should just put her awkward feelings behind her. 

“Um. Long story. I have babies and they can’t see.” She didn’t say “over” this time, having noted that Max obviously didn’t care about walkie-talkie etiquette. 

“Wait. What?”

El rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Animal babies. In my house. Don’t know what kind. Need help.” Every second that Max was asking questions was another second that wasn’t spent helping the tiny animals. 

“I don’t understand what’s going on at all, but do you want me to come over?”

“Yes!” Finally. 

“Okay, I guess I’ll be over there in a few minutes.” And then Max shut off her side of the connection, presumably to rush over to El’s house. 

El spent the next fifteen minutes pacing back and forth between the shoebox and the window, waiting for Max and keeping an eye on the rather uneventful babies. She couldn’t sit still- she just wanted Max to get over here already! What if something was really wrong with those adorable baby fuzz balls and she just didn’t know it?

She looked at the mother, the first one she had brought into her room, and saw it’s eyes were closed too. But El was pretty sure that one was just asleep. The animal seemed to sleep a lot- whatever had happened to get the babies there must have been exhausting. 

But the mother was woken up abruptly by a loud knock on the door. El ran over to the door and flung it open with her mind, causing the redhead on the other side to stumble back a step. 

“In here,” El ordered. She turned right back around and marched to her room, Max following her. 

“What’s going on?” Max asked, exasperated. “You haven’t explained anything and-“

She cut herself off as they entered El’s bedroom and Max saw the animals in the middle of her floor. El watched curiously as the girl’s eyes both lit up and softened, the irritation melting away from her expression. 

“Kittens,” she sighed. “They’re so cute!”

“Kit-tens,” El repeated. “That’s what the animals are called?”

“You don’t know what a... never mind. Yeah.” She nodded. “Well, the babies are called kittens, normally they’re just called cats.”

“Cats,” El repeated, looking at the mother cat in front of her. “You are a cat.” The cat blinked at her. 

El focused her attention on Max, who had crouched down to get a better look at the kittens. “I was worried. They can’t open their eyes.”

Max looked up at her, smiling softly. “It’s okay. Kittens’ eyes aren’t supposed to open until a few days after they’re born.”

El furrowed her eyebrows. “Really? That doesn’t sound very safe.”

Max shrugged. “The momma cat takes care of them.”

El nodded slowly. “Now what do we do?”

“We?” Max raised an eyebrow. But then she glanced down at the kittens again and hesitated. Right at that moment one of the kittens gave out the tiniest little “mew” possible, and El’s heart practically spasmed from the exposure to such a precious sound. 

Max must have felt the same way, because she told El: “Well, we’re definitely keeping them. They’re too cute not to.” She didn’t take her eyes away from the cats as she talked. 

“Definitely,” El agreed. She sat down next to the shoebox and Max joined her. The mother cat watched their movements carefully, determining whether them sitting down was threatening enough to put up a fight. The cat seemed to decide the girls were okay and put it’s head down on it’s paws to rest. 

“So how did you get them in here anyway?” Max asked after a minute of silence had passed. 

El explained to her how she had seen the cat outside the window, befriended it with an offering of Eggos, and led it inside, away from the rain. And how she had let it sleep for a couple of hours and had come back to find the newborn kittens with it. 

When El finished, Max just sat there for a second. “You fed her Eggos?”

“Yes. She liked them almost as much as I do.”

Max shook her head. “That’s kind of funny, actually.” El stared at her, clueless. “Cats are supposed to be carnivores. Which means they eat mostly meat.”

“Oh.” El thought for a second. “We’ll have to get some meat then.”

“Yeah. And a litter box.” Max added. El stared at her blankly. “It’s a thing full of grains of... of litter, and cats use them as toilets.”

El wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

But Max was still thinking ahead. “And we’ll need to get bowls for food and water. The kittens will be drinking their mother’s milk for a while, so we don’t need to feed them. But we can get them cat toys!” Max grinned. “Have I ever told you that I’ve always wanted a cat?”

“You’ve never really told me anything at all.” The room was suddenly silent and El winced at the harshness of her own words. Sure, they hadn’t really been good friends yet, due to circumstance and El’s own stubbornness, but she shouldn’t have killed the mood like that. 

Max looked down at her lap, hiding her expression from El’s questioning eyes. “Right. I-“

“Sorry!” El blurted out. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Max lifted her head back up to meet her eyes. She studied her carefully, searching for the true intent in El’s words. “You know, we should fix that. We should be friends.”

El smiled. “We are friends, starting right now,” she announced. “Good friends.”

Max snorted, but considered. “I think I like the sound of that, actually.”

El nodded once, like if it was all settled. “Now we need to name the cats.”

“Okay. How about Eenie, Meenie, Miney, and Mo?”

“What?” El looked at the kittens and then back up at Max. “Those don’t sound like real words.”

“Oh. No, they’re from a rhyme.”

“What kind of rhyme?” El, not wanting to be rude, refrained from pointing out that none of those words actually rhymed.

“You use it to help pick things. Like: Eenie, meenie, miney, mo...” she recited the whole rhyme pointing at each kitten as she accentuated each word. When she finished, her finger was on the black kitten. “So then I would choose this kitten.”

“For what?”

“No. I’m not actually- it was just an example.”

“Oh.” El looked down at her bare feet to hide the blush growing on her cheeks. No matter how many things she learned, there were always five more things that she didn’t understand. It made her feel so stupid- like she would never be able to know as much about normal things as everyone else. Things that should be impossible for her to not know. But of course she would never be able to grow out of how different, how weird she was. 

“Sorry,” she apologized again. 

“What for?” Max asked, and El could feel her eyes on her. 

El looked back up. “I keep not knowing things. And then you keep having to explain them. You came all the way here and there wasn’t even anything wrong.”

Max reached a hand out and rested it on El’s shoulder. “None of that is your fault. Nobody expects you to know everything, because you didn’t grow up living in the world like we did.” 

El bit her lip. “But I still want to know everything.”

“Then let me teach you some stuff.” Max scrambled to her feet, and the cat jerked it’s head up to watch her, eyes wide. 

“Really?” El blinked up at the redheaded girl. “What kind of stuff?”

Max shrugged and stretched out her hand again, this time to help El stand. “All the stuff, I guess.”

El took her hand and got to her feet, giggling. “All the stuff? I don’t think you can do that.”

Max crossed her arms. “Watch me. I’ll be the best teacher you’ve ever seen.” And with that she walked off, back into the kitchen. 

El followed her, speechless. She watched Max open the fridge and rummage around inside until she found a package of cheese sticks. She pulled two out and tossed one to El. 

“First lesson: cheese is really good.”

“I already knew that, silly. That’s why we have some.” El looked at the fridge again. “And I just figured out what to name the cat.”

Max looked at her curiously as she bit off the top half of her cheese stick. “What?”

“Eggo.”

“Wait.” Max swallowed her cheese. “First you feed the cat Eggos, now you want to name it after them too?”

“Well, I love Eggos. The cat loves Eggos. I love the cat. It makes perfect sense.” El was not going to let this go. “She looks like an Eggo and you know it.”

“She looks like a waffle?” But Max relented. “Fine. I like how... unique it is, at least.” El grinned. “And how about we name the kittens after other things in your freezer?” Max laughed at herself. 

El nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! That’s a great idea.” She ignored Max’s weird expression as she pulled the freezer open and started rooting around inside. 

“There are... fish sticks, popsicles, pizza, and ice cubes.”

“I can see where this is going, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.”

El shut the freezer, thinking back to each of the kittens. “The white one can be Ice Cube.”

“The grey one can be Fish Stick and the white one with black spots can be Popsicle.” Max seemed to drop her apprehension as she assigned foods to the kittens as names.

“And then the black one will be Pizza,” El finished.

“Perfect.”

“Should we go tell them?”

Max shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

They went back into the bedroom and found the cats were exactly as they had left them five minutes before. 

El bent down and looked the mother cat in the eye. “You are Eggo.”

“Meow.”

“And you are Ice Cube, Pizza, Popsicle, and Fish Stick.” El pointed at each kitten as she told them their names. They didn’t reply, obviously, but that was okay. 

She stood back up and turned to Max. “I am ready for you to teach me stuff.”

Max pursed her lips, thinking quickly. “Okay. Um... let me teach you about pet stores.”

After checking on the cats one more time they left the house, and a few minutes later they were entering Hawkin’s local pet store. 

El was immediately overwhelmed by everything. She saw birds and fish and other small creatures in tanks and cages, apparently waiting to be adopted. And the birds chirped as the little rat things ran on wheels that squeaked as they spun, and the whole place smelled like a barn. 

Suddenly El heard Max laughing, and she snapped back to attention. “What’s so funny?”

“Your face!” Max crowed, trying to hold back her laughter. “You looked like a kid who just walked into a candy store for the first time. And also just discovered sugar.”

El shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t even know what half these animals are.”

“Then I’ll have to introduce you.” Max grabbed El’s hand and started to drag her over to the rat-things. She felt a tiny tingle in her chest when Max touched her, but she didn’t know why. 

“So this is a hamster.” Max pointed to the tail-less rat that was currently running it’s tiny feet out on a plastic wheel. 

“It’s kind of mean that they tricked them into running so fast, and then not actually get anywhere.” El frowned. 

“It’s the only way for them to get exercise without getting lost.” Max noticed El’s unsettled expression. “I really don’t think they mind.”

El nodded slowly, though she still didn’t really understand. There was something about being held captive and forced to do something so draining for their own good that just... made her nervous. 

El turned to the animals nearby. “These are snakes. I’ve seen them outside.” And they had scared her half to death there too. She wasn’t sure what they were doing in a pet store though. 

“Yeah. But some kinds can be pets.” Max pointed at a bright green one. “I love them. We could ask to hold one, if you want.”

El really did not love the idea of touching the long coil of creature, but she suddenly felt embarrassed to admit it. Especially since Max said she liked them so much. 

“Sure.”

Max walked over to the cashier and asked to hold the snake while El stayed in the same spot, staring into the snake’s beady black eyes. The animal was silent, it’s sleek face betraying absolutely no emotion. She couldn’t see it’s mouth, but she was sure it had sharp, needley teeth. 

Max came back over to her, followed by the cashier. The cashier was a middle aged woman with a kind face- the sort of person you would expect to love animals. 

The woman gently pulled off the tank’s lid and set it down on the shelf beside her. Then she slid her hands into the tank and picked up the snake around the middle. It curled it’s head against her arm to avoid dangling, but let it’s tail-end hang limply in the air. 

“Alright,” The woman turned to the girls. “Which one of you wants to go first?”

El glanced at Max nervously, trying to convey to her that she most definitely did not want to go first, but without showing any panic. 

Whatever message she sent, Max understood. “I’ll go first. El, you can watch so that you know what to do when it’s your turn.”

“Okay,” El agreed, slightly relieved. 

The woman gave the snake to Max, instructing her on how to properly hold it, but she already seemed to know what she was doing. The snake wrapped around her arms and flicked it’s tongue against Max’s skin as it wiggled it’s head around, checking her out. 

El watched as Max made sure the snake was situated comfortably, and then began to stroke it’s rope-like body with two fingers. El noticed her face was different than when Max looked at her. It was like it had been when she’d first seen the kittens- soft and bright and full of... wonder. Like all the coolness had melted away to reveal a very gentle girl underneath. For a second, El was almost jealous of the snake for so easily getting Max to look at it in that way. 

Max glanced up at El, smiling. “Come pet it. It’s so smooth.”

El inched closer to Max until she could reach out a hand and touch the snake with a single finger. Max was right- it was very smooth. And slightly cool, but not slimy like a frog. She realized for the first time that it was covered in little scales, bumpy and textural beneath her finger. It wasn’t as soft, or nearly as cute, as the cats, but it wasn’t too bad. 

“Are you ready to hold it?” Max asked, giving it one last stroke. 

El nodded, and Max handed the snake to her, uncoiling it’s body from her own arms. She showed El how to hold it, directing her hands to support the right places so the snake could get comfortable. 

El was holding her breath, whether from the touch of the snake wrapping itself around her arm or from Max gently guiding her hand, she wasn’t sure. But she almost felt like she couldn’t breathe, in the least bad way possible. 

El bit her lip and focused her attention on the snake’s head, moving around the crook of her arm. It’s papery forked tongue flicked in and out faster than El could properly see, tickling the hairs on her arm. 

She giggled, and Max gave her a strange look. “The tongue! It tickles!”

Max giggled a bit too. “Yeah, it kinda does.”

El held the snake for another minute, gradually relaxing and petting the green scales, before the cashier told them it was time to put the snake back into the tank. El let the woman take the snake and then watched as she set it down inside it’s living space, where it slithered over a log until it was settled down. 

They thanked the woman and then she headed back to the register. El and Max moved onto the next aisle, where El was immediately distracted by all the fish. She went from tank to tank, gazing at each one and pointing out her favorites to Max. Max nodded along and added in with an interesting fact every once in a while when they came across a species that Max recognized. 

El liked the blue and purple ones the best- ones with shimmery tails and hues that seemed to sway in the light. Max seemed more interested in the ones with varying shades of red and orange and yellow. El thought that Max would look like that if she were a fish. Max would be red and orange with a tail that looked like fire when she swam. 

They finished looking at the fish and then went by the birds before finally getting to the pet supplies in the back of the store. “What do we need?” El asked, blinking at all the different cans and brands surrounding her. All of the food appeared practically the same, but the advertising on the cans’ fronts said otherwise. 

“We need some cans of wet food, a bag of dry food, and a litter box with litter,” Max counted the items on her fingers. 

“Don’t forget the bowls and the toys,” El reminded her. Those sounded like the best part. 

“Uh. I may have just accidentally thought of something kinda sorta important.”

“What?”

“Do we have any money?”

El didn’t say anything. She had completely forgotten that you needed money to buy things- but it hardly mattered, she wouldn’t have had any money to bring anyway. 

“I guess Eggo’s gonna be eating more Eggos, then.” 

El’s mind was working ahead. “Wait. Doesn’t Dustin have a cat?”

Max’s eyes widened. “You’re right! He does! El you’re a genius!” She grinned. 

El glowed at Max’s eager reaction. “Let’s go ask to steal- I mean borrow some of his cat stuff.”

“Best plan yet.”


End file.
